This chapter demonstrates how Rogue Wave® DB Link gives access to the new data types introduced by an object oriented RDBMS. Rogue Wave DB Link supports Informix Universal Server and Oracle®, which both provide object oriented features. In this document, these new data types are called Abstract Data Types (ADT).

There are 2 basic kinds of structures introduced by these new RDBMSs—lists, and objects.

First, this chapter demonstrates how to describe such a data type. It presents all the methods available to access the structure of the data type. To work with the objects created in the database, you need to know how these objects are built, that is, what their attributes are. This is referred to as describing the Abstract Data Type.

Then, the chapter presents the classes used to build an instance of an Abstract Data Type within Rogue Wave DB Link, and how this instance is stored in the RDBMS.

These 2 items are reflected in this document as follows: